Mumbai Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar to shift to new residence

New building will come up on a plot adjacent to the existing bungalow, which will house a Thackeray memorial; current Mayor will temporarily move into Byculla zoo premises.

After close to two years of ‘house hunting’, the Mayor of Mumbai will finally have a new address. The new bungalow will come up on a plot of land right next to the existing Mayor’s bungalow in Shivaji Park, as the latter will be converted into a Bal Thackeray Memorial. Current Mayor, Vishwanath Mahadeshwar, will not be able to move into it in his term, however, and will have to move into a bungalow in the Byculla zoo premises – something he has always been unwilling to do.

The 4,345-sq-m plot that has been picked for the new bungalow currently houses a municipal gymkhana, which will be pulled down. The state government has already changed the reservation of the land from gymkhana to municipal housing to make way for the construction of the new Mayor’s bungalow.

Activists hit out at Tree Authority members for clearing BMC proposal to axe 493 trees.

Officials said that the existing Mayor’s bungalow at Shivaji Park will be handed over to the Balasaheb Thackeray Memorial trust by next month.

While the BMC had proposed another plot at Mahalaxmi for the Mayor’s bungalow, the Shiv Sena picked the plot at Shivaji Park to house the Mayor which has been the traditional locality for the Mayor’s residence. “The BMC had proposed other plots too but we wanted the Mayor’s bungalow at Shivaji Park which is our party’s historic base. We have given a go-ahead for the municipal gymkhana plot,” said a senior Sena functionary.

The new bungalow is expected to take at least two years to come up. “Tenders will have to be called and a design will have to be selected. Till that time, we have asked the Mayor to move inside our bungalow inside Byculla zoo. He has agreed to that,” the official said.

The 4,345-sq-m plot that has been picked for the new bungalow currently houses a municipal gymkhana, which will be pulled down

The Mayor, who has been vocal about his unwillingness to move into the Byculla Zoo bungalow, has no option as IAS officer Praveen Darade and his wife IRS officer Pallavi Darade have refused to vacate a BMC bungalow that the couple have occupied in Malabar Hill since 2015. “How can they expect me to live inside the zoo?” he had earlier said. Now, he seems to have softened his stance. Mahadeshwar told Mirror, “There are some more formalities and approvals to be taken. Once everything is clear, I have agreed to move in to the bungalow inside Byculla zoo. Since there is no other bungalow available I will have to go there.”

He added, “I will vacate the existing bungalow so that a grand memorial for Balasaheb Thackeray can be built soon,” he added. The Byculla zoo bungalow is currently used by Additional Municipal Commissioner AL Jarad who will move to a state government accommodation in South Mumbai.

A section of BMC employees who use the gymkhana are upset at losing their only recreational space. “It is unfair to bring down a fully functional gymkhana just to house a Mayor’s bungalow. The BMC must look for other options. There are thousands of employees who use the gymkhana and they will have nowhere to go,” said MNS leader Sandeep Deshpande, who has taken up the issue with the BMC.

Underground memorial

Mumbai Miror had last month reported that the Bal Thackeray Memorial will be mostly underground, requiring no changes to the heritage structure or chopping of trees around it. With hardly any scope for structural alterations given the bungalow’s grade II-B heritage status, the memorial trust headed by Uddhav Thackeray had green lit the memorial plan comprising an art gallery, a library, a seminar hall, a lecture hall and utilities.

The existing Mayor’s bungalow was built in 1928 .The BMC bought the bungalow in 1962 and Dr B P Devgi was the first mayor to use it in 1964-65 as his official residence.